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Let me take you

Let me take you on a pilgrimage to the labor that working men and women have done and continue to do for a long, long time.

Let me take you to the cotton fields of Alabama where my mother chopped the cotton and labored in the mills no longer there, her fingers worked to the bone.

Let me take you to the coal mines of West Virginia where the black lung kills man after man. Let me take you to the grape vineyards of California, the apple orchards of Washington and the orange groves where the migrants pick so that the rest of us will have our breakfast juice.

Let me show you the steel mills no longer alive with the fire that once breathed into men’s souls.

Let me take you to assembly lines of Henry Ford.

Let me show you the men who laid the steel rails hewn through the valleys and mountains to create the land that was America.

Let me sing of the men that climbed to the crow’s nest to spot the big whales. Let me tell you of the garments sewn with the sweat and blood of immigrant labor.

Let me show you the Mohawk high walkers throwing the skyscrapers into being.

Let me take you to the men and the women who work in the slaughterhouses and in the poultry houses to bring the rest of America a meal.

Let me sing to you of the porters who work the railroads and the truckers who drive the eighteen-wheelers from one end of the earth to the other.

Let me introduce you to the maids who mop the floors and make the beds and clean our toilets.

Let me sing of the waitresses who serve our meals and the dishwashers who wash our dishes.

Let me take you to those who dig the diamonds and the gold out from the earth.

Let me introduce you to all that have and continue to do the backbreaking labor. It is from these folks I have been hewn, I have been birthed. The peasants, the serfs, the blue collar workers who work with pride and raise their heads up, knowing that their children will have a better life if only ….

10 thoughts on “Let me take you”

This is powerful writing, Don. Great stuff. Filled with appreciation for those who work hard and go home weary and often dirty in order to provide for their families. It is the best Labor Day tribute I’ve read with its rhythm and mention of workers from across our land, past and present. I wish I could share it with my dad.

More and more these are the ones left behind in a society that lauds greed. Hard work is for suckers. Better to go off to Wall Street and do a Bernie Madoff. Or better yet, go to work for Goldman Sachs. Or become a lobbyist. As PT used to say,there’s one born every minute.